Dissertation
Comparison of Castro's and Peron's social and economic policies
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Essay of 4 pages for the course Latin American History at UCL
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Compare and contrast the social andeconomic policies of Castro and Peron.
Latin America experienced the rise to power of two determined
populist leaders, who based on their ideological belief and current
position/ situation of their countries shaped both, Cuba and
Argentina, socially and economically. Both leaders had to reform
their economy, but they knew that in order to gain support they had
to introduce social policies, which would ease the everyday life of the
Argentinians and Cubans. These social and economic reforms had
their similarities, such as land distribution, nationalization of industry
and foreign owned companies, education and healthcare, but also
their differences as Peron was not fully Left-wing, like Castro, rather
choosing a Third Way, between Fascism and Communism. This
majorly influenced Peron’s view over social and economic policies,
unlike Castro who became a devoted Marxist-Leninist in 1961.
To start with, Castro’s economic policy was based on the equal
redistribution of wealth under the socialist ideology, while Peron’s
“justicialismo” (social justice) was a driving principle within his
economic policy. Castro deprived large landowners under the
Agrarian Law Reform of 1959 based on his principle of “returning
the land to the people” , allowing only a maximum of 400 hectares
for to larger landowners, while giving peasants/ farmers a minimum
of 27 acres. Agriculture was the essence of Cuban economy, as Cuba
produced ¼ of the world’s sugar in 1939 dropping to only 10% by
1959. The sugar industry therefore was completely nationalized, the
government trying to diversify the economy at the same time, which
ended in abject failure. Castro, however, had a desire to show Cuba’s
thrive towards increased development to the world, therefore
,introducing the “10 million ton harvest” in 1970, which again failed
to reach its aim due the lack of skilled labour, badly managed
nationalized sugar mills and the failure of “collectivization”. On the
other side of the economy, Castro started a large state investment
pumping money into infrastructure, communication, public services
and also lowered rents and increased workers’ wages. He introduced
cuts in consumer goods and in imported food, as well as rationing.
This is a sharp contrast with Peron’s policy, but it is claimed by
historian S. Balfour that he saved Cuba from starvation. This might be
over-exaggerated, even if Communist records say nobody starved,
these records are known to present only the success of Communism
and not the actual happenings. On the other side, it might have
helped people as the 1960’s were of a particularly bad harvest.
Peron’s first term policies are strikingly similar with Castro’s, as he as
well redistributed national income among workers, which led to a
33% increase in their salaries. Foreign owned enterprises were
nationalized, but he did not nationalize all the branches of the
economy as Castro, who nationalized all businesses by 1968. The
same problems were persisting in Argentina, as in Cuba, Peron
introducing schemes for the improvement of transport,
communication and energy production. The idea of autarky,
however, was much more present in Peron’s Argentina, as he wished
for financial independence; Argentina did not join the GATT and IMF,
making borrowing hard. This was worsened by the rejection of the
Marshall Plan, pointed out by historian Joseph Page, as being the
final nail in the coffin that bore Peron’s ambitions to transform
Argentina into an industrial power. Indeed, by this Argentina was
denied vital resources and access to trade markets, which would
have opened new windows for the Argentinian economy. Soon
Castro too became conscious about the fact that he could not survive
, without the help of a superpower, so he moved closer to the USSR,
in order to guarantee the buying up of all exported Cuban sugar.
However, the sharpest contrast is the Second Five Year Plan of Peron
starting in 1953, which aimed to give subsidies for farmers to
increase exports, freeze wages to reduce consumption, encouraging
foreign investment, as well as printing money, which lead to rapid
inflation devaluating the peso by half towards the US dollar. This is
the contrary of what Peron believed at the start being a complete
economic U-turn simply because Argentina had a limited economic
growth and had no support from IMF. Indeed it was the final nail in
the coffin, explaining why Peron made such a drastic change.
Regarding to social policies, Peron put education under state control,
expanding state schools as well building new ones giving free
transport, scholarships and bursaries for students. He also made
universities free, but also Peronised resources and basically the
whole education system. Through only the Eva Peron Foundation
8,000 schools and 1,000 kindergartens were built, as well as
women’s status was increased in Argentina. Castro as well reformed
education guaranteeing free education for all engaging in
programmes aimed to reduce illiteracy from 23.6% in 1961 to 3.9% in
1962. This was made possible as he mobilized 250,000 students,
teachers and volunteers. All schools were nationalized and put under
government control, making education compulsory until 6th grade,
multiplying schools, but more importantly increasing the number of
teachers by 40,000 in just fewer than 10 years. Both leaders
increased health services to the poor, but Castro was especially
engaged- he ordered the building of new hospitals, health centers,
plus investing in medical research to provide domestically produced
medicine to Cubans as well developing medical technologies for
export. In Cuba it was Castro’s specific ambition, while in Argentina it
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